Arcam DV137 DVD-player
By introducing an updated DVD player which is as near to being universal as the company has designed, Arcam has finally bitten the bullet.
It is additionally a full-on multichannel DVD-Audio player, but unlike its predecessors that can come from this secure, that is the very first previously united in supporting DVD-A to SACD's exclusion.
The Arcam DV137 was capable of full multichannel SACD replay, but this continued only so long as it took to realise that there were severe distortion issues using the deck, when it was first presented to us.
If this issue can be solved, a firmware update will likely be issued and owners will be able to get the feature back. But for the moment the organization isn't making any promises. This is a pity as multichannel SACDs are far more widely accessible compared to the DVD-An equivalent.
For this particular model, Arcam has continued to keep its association with Zoran, and this merchandise is the launch vehicle for the Zoran Vaddis 888S chip, which handles all the format compatibility processing.
It is coupled here with broadcast quality 11-bit 216MHz video DACs. One of the main talking points will probably function as the high- operation Anchor Bay ABT1010 10-bit video upscaler, which takes the 480p or 576p output from disc, and outputs a 720p, 768p or 1080i/p sign across the HDMI link (along with high resolution multichannel audio).
The player will auto- negotiate the best accessible common settings with the chosen display. Additionally, the Mask of Quiet of Arcam? EMC reduces internally radiated electrical noise that could otherwise conceal detail that is fine.
Other advancements add a new more sound remote control, along with a colour OSD menu system with set up calibration wizard.
The player can deliver composite or RGB video and stereo audio in once as HDMI digital video and multichannel audio, say that is useful, for playing into a second room.
There are a number of other features targeted at making the player suitable for multiroom systems for example its ability to be utilized with Crestron or AMX controls. It's also well endowed with secondary characteristics, for example bass direction and powerful speaker, adjustable lip sync and an increased buffer memory when shifting layers on disk, to remove the difference.
The Arcam produces an impressive performance on-screen. The image it creates is stable down to the last pixel when it's analyzed carefully on a big screen. There is no pretence of HD conventional resolving power, although borders are crisp also - you won't see every last blade of grass on a lawn, which is the subject of one particularly telling display on one regular test cd used in this review.
Motion artefacts can also be extremely nicely handled on the whole, though scrolling backgrounds (or foreground objects moving against a fixed background) did look jerky sometimes. Staircasing of diagonal lines was noticeable by its own absence, and there's little hint of the usual muddying of detail in places that are moving. Noise for the most part, wasn't an issue.
Even with the occasional appearance which to a large extent are unavoidable, the player is noteworthy on the whole for solidity and the consistency with which it treats the recorded signal. Colour transitions are managed cleanly, and hard content - the subtle colour transitions you see in lapping water, or cloud scenes for example - are found to be reproduced particularly well.
Shadow detail discovered near the black end is unquestionably managed at least together with my resident Yamaha HD ready DLP projector (the DPX-1300) could solve them.
The sound quality narrative is not any less remarkable. Serious music listeners regularly use different players for CD because DVD players neglect to do well with sound discs, maybe a complication of these internal complexity, high degree of jitter (a universal player like this typically has several clocks, which may mutually interfere) and the quantity of EMC that is floating about internally.
In this case, the player seems strong and constant, even with SACD which can many times be a bit soft centred when it is played through a number of the lesser universal players with driving, propulsive rhythms, and an unusually strong feel.
Overall, the DV-137 is a first-class DVD player, albeit one that is clearly a work in progress as it pertains to the playing back. Consider this if that is significant to your disc group and you. Keep assessing about this problem, which may have now been settled one way or another by the time that is printed.
As DVD and a CD-Audio player, the DV137 is not easy to criticise, so that as a DVD player this is a high achiever. It is only convincingly defeated in my own experience by a handful of much more expensive versions that have exotic image processing from the likes of companies like Silicon Optix.
